Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1980, Page 191

lnversion in Embedded Clauses in Modern lcelandic 189
The Subject-Gap hypothesis stated above allows us to maintaiu the
claim that V/2 applies to embedded clauses without exception,15 but it
forces us to rephrase the question of exceptions to V/2 in the following
way: how are subjects gaps treated in Icelandic syntax?
The data presented in Section 2 suggests that subject gaps can always
be filled by Stylistic Inversion. But can they be filled in other ways,
and when can they be left empty? It is well-known that dummy pað is
often used to begin subjectless sentences. In main clause declaratives,
það occurs in sentence-initial position if and only if nothing has been
fronted. The same is true of embedded declaratives, as shown by the
contrast in (44):
(44) a Ég veit, að það er ekið vinstra megin í Ástralíu
b *Ég veit, að — er ekið vinstra megin í Ástralíu
It is clear that subject gaps in declaratives must be filled in order to
satisfy V/2, either by stylistic-inversion or by /;a<?-insertion, if nothing
has been Topicalized. (Let me emphazie again that I am not attributing
subject status to either kind of filler.)
However, there are other clause types that do allow subject gaps to
remain unfilled. This seems to be generally true of clauses which them-
selves inherently contain gaps, e.g., relatives, questions, and compara-
tives,16 although the gap that leads to apparent V/1 order need not be
the result of subject extraction, as was illustrated in (41). An example
for relative clauses is given in (45):
(45) Bretland er eina landið, þar sem—er ennþá ekið vinstra megin.
In such clauses, subject gaps due to impersonal constructions can be
filled by Stylistic Inversion, but many speakers do not accept það-in-
sertion (cf. Section 2.2.3), as illustrated in (46)-(47):
(46) a Hann spurði, hvar ekið væri ennþá vinstra megin
b *Hann spurði, hvar það væri ennþá ekið vinstra megin
(47) a Bretland er eina landið, þar sem ekið er vinstra megin
b *Bretland er eina landið, þar sem það er ekið vinstra megin
Similarly for comparative clauses:
15 But see footnote 4.
16 This generalization is due to Annie Zaenen. See Zaenen(1980) for a more
detailed discussion of the environments in which apparent V/1 orders are possible.